Course Overview

Course Outline

Modules

Assignments

Resources

Policies

Insurmountable Coding Problems

A Rolling coaster



This class was a roller coaster. . . not a crazy one where you would find adrenaline junkies, but one that speeds up, slows down, makes you worried but also makes you excited: the class was definitely rolling. I enjoyed the class overall but there were moments where I did not and was very frustrated. I enjoyed learning how to code because it’s something I’ve been meaning to learn for a few years and boy did I learn somethings. . .

Whether I agree with your assessment or not, I will schedule a time for us to discuss your self-assessment. In this discussion, we will come to an agreement regarding your final grade reflecting the criteria in the Course Overview and as outlined below.

What were you asked to do?

Please give me a bulleted/numbered list of each task you were asked to do for this course. Where relevant, please also link the html version of the file representing each task, in your own repos, to the bulleted entry for that task.

What did you accomplish?




How well did you accomplish them?

Please let me know how well you feel you accomplished your tasks, in a general sense. What do you feel you did the best, and what did you do the least well? What was the hardest part for you? Did your work/understanding/ease improve over the course of the semester?

Overall I did mostly well, all but 1 homework/peer commentary was submitted late, my code improved greatly as the semester continued. I read all modules before their respective seminar date; although I was not able to understand all of the content in the modules before the class, after our meetings I had a better idea of the goals, purposes, and relevance of the modules I had trouble with. I did the homeworks well, there is improvement in my code comments and I tried my absolute hardest in peer comments to help others out, even when I was not confident in my code I gave meaningful suggestions to help my peers. Most of my homework code was similar to the solutions but I was not confident with Homework 4(I did okay, but the modules/homework was not clicking for me until a few weeks after), but otherwise my work and understanding of topics was solid. I showed improvement in my ability to use Git and Rstudio and became more confident since the first Commit & Push. The group vignette was solid and well done but I agree with the critique which states we could have benefited by adding some form of analyses. Replication was done well and I tried my best to use what I learned from the course including peer comments, the modules, and homeworks.

How has your understanding of and approach to statistics and project design changed since taking this course?

This course has deepened my understanding of statistics by going into the specifics of statistical tests, techniques,analyses, and explanations. I am more confident in explaining how statistics is used after this class. Before I would learn how to do certain tests, be given a few numbers to perform the statistics on a calculator or follow a formula, but after having to code statistics on actual data sets, I understand how each statistic we learned works, when to use them, and how they can be interpreted for papers. In the project design aspect of the course, I have gained much from my novice beginnings. I’ve learned about coding in R, how to build an html file, and the complexity of coordinating/designing on a computer. This is a class I am glad I took and I plan to use this experience for the future, both near and far.

What did you learn from all this?

Please name at least three things you feel you learned in this course.

  1. How to code, especially statistics, in Rstudio in an effective manner as well as design beautiful .html files that have unique characteristics
  2. How to use, explain, and analyze different types of statistics for your own data or to understand data/analyses from others.
  3. How to effectively communicate with others for assignments and projects in a somewhat work-from home setting.


What did your learn about teamwork in this course? How did the readings on teamwork foster this understanding? How did the teamwork experiences?

The Vignette project provided me with a different but not unwanted experience of teamwork. I am used to working together in the same room as others and talking to them and reviewing each others work as we continue the assignment. This was different because we were all working separately and reconvening only to start the next part of the project. At first, it felt less like teamwork and more like an assembly line, but I was able to adapt, and it became more collaborative. Although it was uncomfortable at first, I am glad I was able to experience this form of teamwork because sometimes this form may be what is available. Peer commentary also taught me how to look deeper into peoples’ works; Since I was learning to code, I couldn’t provide concrete “this is right/wrong” comments, I had to look into each line of code and give suggestions based of the Modules, testing their code, comparing it to my own work, and reading the homework instructions over and over. Peer commentary taught me how to meticulously inspect, edit, comment, and internalize/revise my work and others’, whether it is code or not.

How did the Peer Commentary process and Group Project relate, if at all, to what you view as your successes or difficulties in this course?

The Peer Commentary process and the Group Project were essential factors of my success in the class. It made me more confident in my statistics and my code as well as prevented me from straying from the correct answer. All my peers and their comments were extremely helpful with understanding the homeworks and the modules. The group project also helped me learn more formatting and code. Ritika, Paige, Sofia, and Reese showed me some new/efficient code and I learned that there were somethings they didn’t know and was able to teach them. It made me feel more confident and comfortable being in the class and boosted my drive to work hard and succeed.


What, if anything, of lasting value do you take away from this experience? If nothing, what would you do differently if you were to start over in this course?

This experience has shown me that coding is difficult and frustrating and can put you in a bad mood. But it’s amazing being able to code and have a virtually endless possibility of outputs: images, numbers, plots, photos analyses, etc. If I were to start over, I would make a different vignette and learn/teach others about AI and making. I would also love to make my own package. I do regret my lack of code comments at the beginning of the year and would like to fix them. Additionally, we focused much on the statistics portion but I would have liked to dedicate some of my time to learn about the different formatting options and methods of prettifying the .html files because the theme changes but the overall look is the same and became boring to look at.


Taking this self-assessment into account (and with A being the highest), if you were the instructor, what grade would you give yourself given your evaluation of your own performance this semester? Please be honest.


[A-]